Principles of Human Genetics and Mendelian Inheritance

Abstract

Every species has a particular series of inherited characteristics (traits), which determines a developmental plan and distinguishes one species from another. Differences between individuals of the same species (variations) are the result of genetic, epigenetic, and/or environmental factors. As the molecular support of heredity of any living organism, genes are transmitted from parents to offspring during the process of reproduction. A gene is the basic physical and functional unit of heredity. The concept of gene was recently redefined as a locatable region of genomic sequence, corresponding to a unit of inheritance, associated with regulatory regions, transcribed regions, and/or other functional sequence regions.